A Berea candidate can blog freely for a while, according to a judge's ruling

BEREA, Ohio -- A judge has unmuzzled
a Berea candidate's blog for now.

Judge Pamela
Barker of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas this week refused to follow up her temporary restraining order with a preliminary injunction against The Berea Post's proprietor, Johanna Hamrick.

Hamrick, a frequent political candidate, is running this
fall for council president against incumbent Mary Brown. The plaintiff, Dean Van Dress, is a Brown ally running for
re-election as councilman-at-large and a lawyer representing himself. He says
entries in the Post have falsely accused him of bankruptcy, environmental
violations and more.

Hamrick
settled a somewhat similar suit in 2011 by Norma Kleem, sister of Mayor Cyril
Kleem, another ally of Van Dress.

Said Hamrick,
"We live in the United States of America. If people want to bring up something on an elected official,
that's clearly their right. There have been plenty of things said about me that
are inaccurate, but do I go around suing everybody? No. You get tough skin.
It's just part of politics."

Said Van
Dress, "People need to be truthful. There's obviously open discourse for
official actions, but they can't purposefully say things that are completely
false. ... The vitriol, lies and
cyber-bullying seen on the Internet today is sickening."

Van Dress
said that, before going to court, he tried vainly to persuade Hamrick to remove
the falsehoods.

Van Dress is building a home next to Karp's on Adams Street
near Coe Lake. Karp contacted the Army Corps of Engineers about the neighbor's
lot. The Corps inspected and found no violation of the Clean Water Act.

The lawsuit claims that Karp has moved Van Dress's property
markers and written words under other names on The Berea Post that defame him
or cast in him a false light. Jack Mills, one of Karp's lawyers, denies the
claims.

A Post entry also accuses Van Dress of bankruptcy. Van Dress
said a lien was briefly, mistakenly issued against him as the statutory agent
of a corporation in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks damages of $25,000 or more — a threshold for
a Common Pleas suit. Van Dress says he really wants apologies, retractions and no
more falsehoods.

Hamrick's legal team includes students from a clinic at Case
Western Reserve University School of Law. Professor Avidan Cover said the
clinic takes civil rights cases. The students are Rebecca Sremack of Akron,
Christopher Heltzel of Cleveland Heights and John Rogers of Painesville. With
just a few days' notice, they wrote briefs, argued the case before Barker and
defeated Van Dress's bid for a preliminary injunction.

Van Dress, Brown and several other candidates have shared
campaign mailings this year with Cyril Kleem's support.

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